Safety Compromiseshttp://www.safetycompromises.com
Causation of half of all public transportation accidentsThu, 21 Sep 2017 19:15:36 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.9128043649On-Board Slips and Fallshttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/on-board-slip-and-falls/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:10:08 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=7Something one rarely ever finds in a professional driver’s training materials is an explanation of inertial and centrifugal forces. These forces were rudiments of science hundreds of years ago. They can have extraordinary impacts on the movement of both passengers and freight. Yet few public transportation agencies or companies even acknowledge their existence, much less explain what they can do… Continue reading "On-Board Slips and Falls"

]]>Something one rarely ever finds in a professional driver’s training materials is an explanation of inertial and centrifugal forces. These forces were rudiments of science hundreds of years ago. They can have extraordinary impacts on the movement of both passengers and freight. Yet few public transportation agencies or companies even acknowledge their existence, much less explain what they can do to passengers.

Certain industry standards — like not letting passengers ride while standing forward of the white line — were created to combat the worst risks of centrifugal force. During a left turn, a passenger standing forward of this line could be pitched down the front stepwell, and likely blast open the just-closed door. Moments later, he or she could be crushed when the bus’ rear axle rolls over this passenger. In contrast, few transit or motorcoach agencies or companies seem to care about lesser risks — like passengers flying rearward as the vehicle pulls away from the stop, or flying forward as it decelerates and brakes.

Because inertial and centrifugal forces can be so forceful, passengers must ride fully seated in most modes. Even among the worse schoolbus services, pulling away before a passenger is fully-seated is a taboo. So too is allowing a student to arise from his or her seat before the bus comes to a complete stop. It is similarly rare for a paratransit, NEMT vehicle, limousine or taxi to move before its passengers are seated (although not-securing wheelchairs is a rampant deviation in the paratransit and NEMT sectors). In contrast, racing away from the stop before a just-boarded passenger reaches a seat or stanchion is commonplace in transit service — particularly in large urban areas where all or most schedules are tight even with scores of this violation committed on every run. And while allowing passengers to reach a seat is adhered to in most motorcoach services, it is often not observed when such vehicles are deployed by transit agencies. The consequences are even more acute on motorcoaches because, unlike transit buses, they do not even contain stanchions.

Even on transit buses which contain stanchions, these fixtures are designed and intended for passengers to hold onto, with both feet firmly planted on the floor, while the vehicle is moving. They are not designed or intended for navigating to one’s seat while the bus is accelerating, like an adult-sized jungle gym. Similarly, they are not designed for navigating from one’s seat to a nearby exit door while the bus is decelerating or braking to a stop.

Inertial and Centrifugal Forces: The Fundamentals

In oversimplified technical terms:

Inertial forces impact passengers as the vehicle they are riding on moves longitudinally. As the vehicle accelerates, passengers move rearward. As it decelerates or brakes, they move forward. All things equal, the higher the rate of acceleration or deceleration, the greater the forces.

Centrifugal forces impact passengers as the vehicle moves laterally — switching lanes, pulling angularly away from bus stops, and turning or cornering. All things equal, the greater the speed with respect to the arc of the turn (or any lateral movement), the greater the forces.

Of course, all things are rarely equal. Among the most important variables, the better the suspension system, the more these forces are “dampened.” So in schoolbuses (constructed on truck-like “leaf-spring” suspension systems), seating the passengers before the vehicle moves is even more important than it is in a motorcoach or transit bus (constructed on a pneumatic suspension system with at least one “air bag” at most wheel positions). Similarly, the van- and minibus conversions deployed in paratransit, NEMT and special education services have mostly coil-like suspension systems on the front axle, and (usually) leaf-springs on the rear axle.

Frankly, riding as a standee on any vehicle — even one with a pneumatic suspension system — is significantly (if not exponentially) more dangerous than riding in a seat. But riding as a standee on a body-on-chassis vehicle with a spring suspension system involves an extraordinary risk. TA President Ned Einstein once served as an expert witness on case where a spring-suspension bus was deployed in transit service. Before the bus completed its left turn from a dead stop, three passengers were tossed through a closed door into the roadway. Two were standees. The third was seated on the opposing side of the aisle from the door (see “The Mysterious Force“)!

Extremes of Inertial and Centrifugal Force

The extremes of inertial force are best illustrated by a collision. When the impact forces or “closing speeds” (the combined speeds of two vehicles travelling in different directions at the moment they collide) reach 30 mph, this speed creates 20 g-forces. Seatbelts and wheelchair securement hardware is certified to withstand this level of g-forces.

In even the most poorly-constructed forward-facing seat, the occupant usually has a seat back of some sort in front of him or her. And that seat is welded or bolted to the floor. So one needs little imagination to understand how a standee would fare in such a collision. Similarly, it should be obvious why a wheelchair should be firmly secured — much less secured at all four wheel positions, which is the irrefutable industry standard and the strong recommendation of all legitimate securement manufacturers.

The extremes of centrifugal force are illustrated by a rollover. There is a limit to how fast any object can turn or pivot around a given arc or curve. When the object exceeds this speed, one side of it — the tires and wheels of a vehicle — literally leave the ground. Most vehicles are designed to return to a horizontal plane (i.e., the roadway surface) from even a severe angle. For example, most buses or coaches will return to the ground from a “tilt” of about 28 degrees when simply tilted and not moving longitudinally. But once this tilt is exceeded, or this angle is approached too quickly (i.e., from the vehicle’s forward movement), the vehicle will roll over. In many catastrophic accidents (most commonly involving motorcoaches whose drivers have fallen asleep at the wheel), the vehicle may tumble completely around (i.e., a 360-degree rotation) over and over again — particularly when it rolls down a hill. But merely accelerating too quickly on a mild turn can pitch passengers through a closed door and out of the bus (see The Mysterious Force). And in lateral movements that do not even approach a rollover, passengers can be ejected through windows. Few ejectees survive.

Only in fixed route transit or some passenger rail modes (e.g., subways) are passengers permitted to ride standing. True “integrally-constructed” transit buses contain pneumatic suspension systems. “Heavy rail” passenger trains contain heavy-duty suspension systems — even while rail vehicles experience little pitch (picture a roller coaster) or yaw (picture a surfer). Yet even with their superior suspension systems, the interiors of these vehicles are outfitted with horizontal and vertical stanchions, intended for passengers to hold onto while standing on both feet. As noted, these devices are not designed for navigating between a door and some position within the passenger compartment.

When a bus pulls into or away from a stop, it moves both laterally (exerting centrifugal forces on the passengers) and longitudinally (exerting inertial forces on the passengers):

During acceleration, the greatest exertion of these forces occurs when the vehicle travels from a complete stop to the next, tiniest increment of speed.

During deceleration or braking, the greatest exertion of these forces occurs when the vehicle goes from its slowest, declining crawl to a complete stop.

Both of these moments are illustrated by the “lurch” passengers feel — no matter how quickly the vehicle accelerates or how slowly it decelerates or brakes. Mathematically, this change is displayed as X/Y = ∞. This phenomenon explains why a passenger is knocked down as a bus or coach pulls away from a stop before he or she reaches a seat (or a “point of securement” on a transit bus) even if it accelerates slowly and gently. And it explains why a passenger walking toward or waiting near an exit can be knocked down as the vehicle crawls to a stop. It is utter nonsense to claim that the vehicle accelerated too quickly or braked too sharply. The greatest exertion of these forces occurs when the vehicle’s speed (in any direction) goes from nothing to anything, or from anything to nothing.

For this reason, no bus should pull away from a stop until every boarding passenger has reached a seat (or a stanchion in a transit bus). Similarly, passengers should be conditioned, through persistent warnings, to not arise from their seats before their vehicles come to a complete halt at their selected stops. Plenty of transit agencies contain rules about this procedure for boarding. Yet few mention it for alighting — even though the same principle is involved as in boarding. Regardless, the schedules of many transit agencies’ routes (and all of many transit agencies’ routes) are so tight that this safety compromise is made at virtually every stop.

Most interesting is the fact that even with scores or hundreds of these compromises on many runs of a transit route, the buses still arrive at the end of the route late. Because transit passengers are allowed to board only at the front door, they are encouraged (often with signage) to exit from the rear. So consistent with this practice, many boarding passengers target seats or stanchions in the middle or rear of the bus. This small trek can easily take a young adult with good balance 10 or 15 seconds. And on a busy run, a driver can make this safety compromise scores of times. So with this stunt, high ridership and multiple stops, a driver can easily “shave” a good 10 minutes off his or her “running time.” For this reason, violating this principle and industry-standard procedure is, by far, the most common safety compromise.

Violating this principle and industry-standard procedure is, by far, the most common safety compromise.

Troubling, of course, is that this violation is routinely committed by drivers even on systems which formally forbid it as a policy matter. More interesting, even on systems where every route’s schedule is tight, and where all drivers regularly commit this safety compromise (scores of times every run), the vehicles still reach their destinations behind schedule! In at least a dozen ride-and-time exercises conducted by TA President Ned Einstein, some transit systems’ routes fall 20 to 30 minutes behind schedule (when the entire route was only 90 minutes long, or less) even with considerable time “shaved” off regularly committing this single safety compromise.

A driver can create a considerable chunk of “recovery time” by not letting most of a run’s 50 to 100 passengers reach a seat or stanchion.

As a footnote for plaintiffs’ attorneys, the General Manager or Executive Director of every transit agency knows (or should know) which routes’ schedules are too tight. So lawsuits involving on-board slip-and-falls (particularly after boarding and before alighting) are not respondeat superior cases. They involve negligent policy-making and negligent scheduling. And they involve reckless disregard.

As noted, drivers of three of the four motorcoach “sectors” deploying motorcoach vehicles rarely pull this stunt: Charter service, tour service, and the better intercity/scheduled services. In contrast, many drivers of motorcoach services deployed by (or operating under contract to transit agencies — mostly in commuter/express mode) regularly follow dangerous transit practices and make this safety compromise.

In every transit system, policies, procedures and training contain the mantra “Safety Comes First, when evidence is examined, it is clear that reliability (schedule adherence or on-time performance) and customer service are the genuine priorities, despite the policy and procedural subterfuge to obfuscate the truth.

Worse Still with Motorcoaches

Motorcoaches are deployed in basically four sectors: tour service, charter service, intercity/scheduled service and commuter/express service — the latter provided by transit agencies or private companies under contract to these agencies. On-board slip-and-falls are rare to passengers traveling on the first three of these sectors. In contrast, they are common to motorcoaches deployed, by transit agencies (or their contractors) in commuter/express service.

As with most safety compromises, this problem is largely the result of schedules being too tight. However, this problem is compounded on motorcoaches because they are not equipped with horizontal or vertical stanchions. Of course, even if they were, these appendages are not designed for navigation purposes. Nonetheless, without these appendages, motorcoach passengers must reach a seat before the coach moves.

Again, because of tight schedules, drivers of commuter/express service rarely let a passenger reach a seat, after boarding, before pulling away from the stop. Equally of interest, these drivers rarely (if ever) warn passengers to remain in their seats as the vehicles approach their stops. The few exceptions usually occur at major facilities like bus terminals and park-and-ride lots, where large numbers of passengers board and alight, and some stow or retrieve luggage, packages, strollers or bicycles from the luggage bays. Some passengers eventually learn that the “dwell time” at these stops is likely to be much longer than at intermediate stops – and thus remain in their seats as the coach is pulling into these stops. Yet even at most of these major stops, motorcoach drivers providing intercity/scheduled service often pull away when the last boarding passenger has either stepped onto the floor level (from the stepwell beneath it), or in some cases, when that passenger has walked behind the white line — yet still not reached a seat. Occasionally, drivers will pull out simply after a passenger has stepped onto the bottom step of the stepwell, just inside the door.

Also, while most intercity/scheduled service drivers follow these rules, all do not. As a practical reality, it is sometimes difficult to even discern between a motorcoach providing intercity service versus commuter/express service, because some commuter/express travel times can be several hours long. Regardless, the closer intercity/scheduled service begins to resemble commuter/express service, the less likely drivers are to ensure that their passengers reach a seat before pulling away. And the less likely they will be to instruct their passengers (periodically) to remain in their seats until the vehicles come to a complete stop.

Rapid Acceleration, Deceleration and Braking

Sharp braking into a bus stop, or racing away from one, can shave a few seconds from a route’s running time. But like most safety compromises that shave only a few seconds, committing this type of safety compromise can occur dozens or scores of times on a single run of a transit bus or motorcoach deployed in commuter/express service. So in the process of multiple safety compromises of this type, a driver can shave several minutes off a route’s running time.

If every passenger were fully seated when either of these scenarios occurs (or on a transit bus, at least holding onto a vertical or horizontal stanchion), these compromises would not have such serious consequences. Nor would wheelchairs tip over as often, or passengers fly out of their seats. More interestingly, the industry standard, on any type of wheelchair-accessible vehicle, is for a three-point occupant restraint system to be used to secure wheelchair users into their chairs. In fact, the installation of such devices is a Federal regulatory requirement. Thus, if a wheelchair user is injured as a result of this device being missing, his or her civil rights have been violated.

The failure to install a three-point occupant restraint system at every wheelchair securement position translates, automatically, into a civil rights violation whenever such a passenger is injured as a result.

As a curious legal matter, the time and money saved by operators whose drivers do not follow these rules grossly exceeds the damage awards and settlements of those injured as a result of these omissions. But this is largely because many of the victims’ attorneys do not know how to prosecute such cases. Or their corporate culture is to do more cases less thoroughly — effectively making money “by volume.”

Otherwise, when basic things are understood, on-board slip-and-fall cases are downhill. The most important fundamentals for this dynamic is an understanding of inertial and centrifugal forces. As noted:

A vehicles’ greatest moment of acceleration is its first nanosecond of movement.

A vehicle’s greatest moment of deceleration or braking is its last nanosecond of movement.

Further Legal Ramifications

Success in an on-board slip-and-fall case is largely contingent on the plaintiff’s expert understanding the causes that usually lead to this safety compromise (i.e., moving the bus before boarding passengers can reach a seat or stanchion, and failing to warn them to not arise until it comes to a stop). Among the main cause — as with most safety compromises — is a tight schedule. So when an expert implores his attorney to let him or her “ride-and-time” the route, this request is not superfluous. It is the means of discovering the underlying causation of the incident. And as with other safety compromises — almost all of which are designed to create or expand a driver’s recovery time (usually on a route whose schedule cannot be met without such compromises) — the specter of injunctive relief is a large and frightening one. Even the addition of a single bus to a route creates a “template” for every other plaintiff’s counsel in the service area to use whenever his or her client is injured. This is because one half of public transportation-related incidents are a direct result of one or more safety compromises. And most of them are the result of a tight schedule.

The vast majority of safety compromises is the result of a tight schedule.

The most curious thing about all this is the widespread reluctance of attorneys to employ this powerful tool. Transportation Alternatives President Ned Einstein was once involved in an incident where a wheelchair user working as a courier needed to use every route in one transit system’s service area. When one of his buses stopped short, he merely bumped his head on the passenger seated in front of him. The authentic damages were worth perhaps $1000. But drivers of his transit system never secured the plaintiffs’ wheelchair. He desperately needed his poverty-level job, used every bus in the entire system, and feared for his life. Riding and timing five of that system’s routes, Mr. Einstein found all five of them to be tight. His counsel amended the Complaint to ask the judge to instruct the defendant to add another 15% more buses to its system, spreading them out among all the routes, all of whose schedules, again, were too tight. For the plaintiff’s counsel to take that demand off the table, the defendant forked over $170,000, hired a full-time ADA coordinator, retrofitted every one of hundreds of buses with broken, obsolete or otherwise compromised wheelchair securement equipment with brand new, state-of-the-art hardware, and agreed to every other item on a 1 1/2-page list of demands. Legal remedies are nothing if not underused.

Legal remedies are nothing if not underused.

Of course, this tale is peanuts to what can sometimes be accomplished with injunctive relief. In Bus Riders Union v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (1999), a class action lawsuit where no one was injured, the judge ordered the defendant to purchase an additional 3,200 buses.

]]>7Wheelchair and Passenger Securementhttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/wheelchair-and-passenger-securement/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:09:18 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=11On a run with a tight schedule, no other single omission can create as much additional “recovery time” as the failure to secure a wheelchair. (See wheelchairtipovers.com.) When a wheelchair user is injured or killed because his or her chair had tipped over, most individuals initially focus only on symptoms or guesses (e.g., negligent training). In contrast, the failure to… Continue reading "Wheelchair and Passenger Securement"

]]>On a run with a tight schedule, no other single omission can create as much additional “recovery time” as the failure to secure a wheelchair. (See wheelchairtipovers.com.) When a wheelchair user is injured or killed because his or her chair had tipped over, most individuals initially focus only on symptoms or guesses (e.g., negligent training). In contrast, the failure to secure a wheelchair can be the result of many other things as well. A route’s schedule being too tight is usually the predominant factor.

Over the past two decades, routes and schedules have increasingly been created by software — the developers of which are given aggressive instructions to reduce costs by compressing the various routes’ running times. Because computers cannot think, and software cannot make the spatial and temporal decisions that would genuinely improve efficiency, these robots simply “optimize the chaos” of the transportation agency’s failure to actually design the system. Tight schedules are simply the consequence of this failure. This failure is extremely common to transit service: In many transit systems, every schedule is tight. And this is on routes where few or no boarding passengers are given a chance to even reach a seat or stanchion before the bus leaves the stop (and given no warning to not arise prematurely before the bus comes to a complete stop for their alighting). Yet for other reasons, tight schedules are also common to complementary paratransit service and, for different reasons, rampant in non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) or “Ambulette” service.

In many transit systems, every schedule is tight.

Particular Problems in Demand-Responsive Services

“Demand-responsive” services are provided on a “door-to-door” or curb-to-curb” basis. In addition to taxi and limousine services (few of which are accessible, and thus do not experience wheelchair tipovers), the three primary demand-responsive services are complementary paratransit service, non-emergency medical service and special education school bus service. (Through an approach known as “inclusion,” many disabled and other special needs students are transported on regular school buses with the general student populations.)

The scheduling software employed in modern complementary paratransit service almost universally translates into routes too tight. In most cases, transit agencies (responsible for providing these services under the Americans with Disabilities Act) contract the scheduling to software developers, and contract the provision of service to other third-party contractors. Because these transit “lead agencies” universally fail to actually design their systems, their software developers are left with the chore of optimizing the chaos. And they are given aggressive agendas for rendering the patchwork quilt of routes efficient. In response, the operating contractors selected to actually operate them are stuck with them — and usually receive the blame when their drivers fall behind schedule. The natural result is the commission of safety compromises. And since paratransit services are so inefficient under these circumstances, and transport so few passengers per vehicle service hour, the principal safety compromise that saves the most time, by far, is the failure to secure a wheelchair. And failing to secure a wheelchair usually carries along with it the failure to secure the occupant into his or her chair with the ADA-required three-point occupant restraint system.

In many instances of the failure to do both, unsecured wheelchair users fly out of their seats. Since they are usually disabled and/or medically fragile to begin with, they are usually mutilated by these incidents, when not killed. But clever drivers have a habit of quickly picking up, and then actually securing the tipped over chairs, and picking up the passengers and plopping them back into them. So superficially, the evidence speaks for itself that the passenger was not secured into his or her wheelchair. Upon inspecting the vehicle, of course, someone like myself can usually determine whether or not the chair itself was also not secured — which I usually find to be the case. This is an important exercise: The ADA only requires the installation of a three-point occupant restraint system. But a wheelchair tipover violates the ADA’s “two-inch movement rule.” As a consequence, every wheelchair tipover [on any and every mode] comprises a civil rights violation.

For different reasons, the most frantic operating environment of them all is non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) service, where service providers are increasingly being starved to death by the brokers engaged through RFPs and operating contracts created by hapless State or County healthcare agencies. These arrangements generally allow brokers to retain that part of their operating budgets that they do not spend on the actual provision of service (which their “subcontractors” provide). In these cases, brokers rarely create the schedules. Instead, they assign trips to various service providers.

But this structure and its relationships do not begin to describe the chaos. First, the brokers are generally compensated by the abstract “per capita” formula common to healthcare providers: A fixed amount per month for each enrolled and certified client, irrespective of how often he or she travels. So with yet other zany constraints, only a handful of mega-companies can even qualify as a broker. Further, the brokers then usually reimburse their service providers on a taxi-cab-like formula: $X/trip and $Y/hour — a problematic formula for a shared-ride service.

Compounding these inherent structural problems, brokers rarely train their service providers about how schedule efficiently. Plus, most of their contracts with the lead agency healthcare providers stress efficiency, and often require them to negotiate the lowest rates possible. Keep in mind, again, that the brokers get to keep all the money that they do not spend on the actual provision of service. Worse still, multiple constraints further impede a service provider’s ability to even schedule efficiently. (One West Coast broker actually refused to pay its service providers for the mileage of any overlapping “shared rides” — even while the reimbursement structure was designed with the assumption that the service would be provided largely on the basis of shared rides.) Regardless, it is not hard to understand why, without committing countless safety compromises (failing to secure wheelchairs and their occupants into them, speeding, providing passenger assistance, even parking on the side of the street that would provide access to a lift or ramp), it could be hard for a service provider to even “break even.” Of course, a service provider could obviously walk away from such a contract opportunity. Otherwise, eking out a profit from this situation is almost impossible without the commission of regular safety compromises — of which wheelchair securement failures are, again, the most effective in terms of reducing time, and freeing up drivers and their employers to pile up revenue by “putting miles on” the vehicle.

Of the nearly 90 wheelchair tipover cases on which TA President Ned Einstein has served as an expert witness (through 2017), virtually every one of them occurred on a vehicle that was behind schedule.[1] (Seewheelchairtipovers.com.) At the same time, there are other reasons wheelchairs tip over (mostly during cornering, since most chairs are positioned to face forward, as required by the ADA). These include:

Some straps or other components are missing.

The hardware is composed of mismatched parts that don’t fit together.

The fittings at the end of straps or belts are broken.

The straps or belts are torn.

Retractors do not operate properly.

Securement tracks (or plates or discs) are dirty, and often floor hardware (which should be removed and stowed after each usage, to keep the hardware and tracks clean) is literally rusted in place.

Hardware (and particularly securement tracks) are damaged, such that the fittings at the end of belts cannot be firmly and reliably inserted into them.

For this reason, it critical to examine the vehicle as soon as possible when filing a lawsuit involving a wheelchair tipover. When possible, the vehicle should be impounded. (If not possible, then plaintiffs’ counsel should purchase it). While far more true in the NEMT sector than the paratransit sector (where 80% of vehicles are paid for with Federal funds), the vehicle of a wheelchair tipover is often quickly sold to another party — often to buyers in Third World countries. Examining one is, far and away, the best tool for answering questions about whether such factors mattered, and to identify the number and variety of regulatory vehicles. In NEMT service, TA President Ned Einstein typically finds two or three federal regulatory violations simply by examining the vehicle — and most deal simply with the vehicle. Because examining both the vehicle and the driver’s logs are the two linchpins of this type of case (even while drivers’ logs are iffy), the failure to engage an expert at the outset of a wheelchair tipover case is more problematic than in most other types of cases involving safety compromises.

Wheelchair Tipovers in General and Special Education School Bus Service

Wheelchair tipovers are far less common in school bus (or pupil transportation) service — even in special education service, which includes many wheelchair users. This is true largely because these systems’ schedules are not usually tight. And further, most school bus drivers, and their management, adore the passengers. However, certain dynamics have begun to undermine these traditions. One dynamic, in particular, is the phenomenon of acquisitions. Since roughly the mid-1990s, both the largest and many small companies have been purchased by British and Scottish oligopolies. Each successive acquisition has also swallowed up many smaller companies. Currently, Scotland’s First Group, which purchased Laidlaw in 2006 (which itself had previously swallowed up Ryder Student Transportation in the mid-1990s), owns and operates roughly 85,000 of the 485,000 school buses deployed in the U.S. But only 165,000 of these buses are operated by private contractors. So First Student alone deploys half of the nation’s private contractor-operated school buses. Two other companies — National Express and First Student of America, deploy most of the others.

The rationale for contracting is, of course, lower costs and less responsibility on the part of a school district. And, of course, contractors indemnify their school districts just as any contractors indemnify their respective lead agencies. Because monitoring is already the Achilles Heel of all public transportation systems (noticeably in the U.S.), contracting out service dilutes this operating function even further.

At the same time, school districts — not their contractors — usually design the routes and schedules: Contractors are simply forced to operate according to them. Of course, a savvy or ethical contractor can choose to not bid on a service whose routes have unreasonable schedules. But most industry outsiders (particularly attorneys) tend to blame contractors for almost everything, when the school districts are often equally or more at fault. And in a handful of states, school districts, like public agencies, enjoy immunity caps. In Florida, this cap is $200,000. In Alabama, it is $100,000. In Pennsylvania, it varies by circumstances.

One predictable effect of the mega-contractor phenomenon has been the suppression of drivers’ and bus monitors’ wages. Realistically, private contractors must bid competitively on services. Since most things other than drivers’ salaries and management levels cost every bidder roughly the same, the bids are often won by the “low bidder.” This dynamic tends to suppress all contractors’ driver salaries. Turnover is rampant. In special education service (where the path between pickups and drop-offs is not fixed), a driver’s lesser familiarity with the service area can create even more problems, especially when the schedule is tight.

To be fair, wheelchair tipovers are not epidemic to the school bus industry. And in many or most systems, they may be rare. But when they do occur, tight routes are usually the culprit.

Summary

These observations are just the main points. Far more about this particular safety compromise can be found on wheelchairtipovers.com.

[1] These 90 or so cases (as of 2017) could have been 130 cases: In another 40 passenger-securement-related cases, most of which involved wheelchair users, it could not be established whether or not these passengers’ wheelchairs were also not secured.

]]>11Speedinghttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/speeding/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:08:32 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=14Speeding would seem to be a natural response to the tight schedules that dominate the routes in many public transportation sectors. This is less so in general education pupil transportation, largely because the stops are relatively close together, and multiple passengers often board and alight at many or most stops. (This is less true, obviously, in rural and other low-density… Continue reading "Speeding"

]]>Speeding would seem to be a natural response to the tight schedules that dominate the routes in many public transportation sectors. This is less so in general education pupil transportation, largely because the stops are relatively close together, and multiple passengers often board and alight at many or most stops. (This is less true, obviously, in rural and other low-density areas.) But safety, in general, is a higher priority in the pupil transportation sector, and particularly with respect to special needs students who often travel separately in smaller vehicles.

In contrast, disabled passengers are the bane of complementary paratransit service: Complementary paratransit is an “unfunded mandate,” generally farmed out to private contractors. And the routes and schedules are typically provided by a third party: software developers. Their agenda is to keep the vehicles moving as quickly as possible, consistent with speed limits, which most of their software is designed to respect. But drivers can still fall behind schedule in this rigid framework, and speeding is an obvious way to catch up.

The worst perpetrators of speeding are the transit sector, the paratransit sector and, far worse, the NEMT sector. NEMT providers’ ability to even “break even” is increasingly undermined by the field’s domination by “brokers” introduced into the field, because most states’ and counties’ hapless healthcare agencies simply can’t cope with the corruption, fraudulent billing, and other “tricks-of-the-trade” which this minimally-regulated member of the public transportation community employs to eke out a living. Plus, few NEMT providers understand how to schedule efficiently — and most recently, at least one broker began to literally penalize them for this, refusing to reimburse them for more-efficient overlapping “shared rides.” Understandably, speeding is rampant in this sector.

In fixed route transit, by contrast, most stops are relative close together, freeway segments of routes are heavily trafficked (in transit service, freeway segments are almost always “close-in” segments adjacent to urban areas), and opportunities for speeding are limited to rapid movement only between stops on those limited roadway segments where it is even possible.[1] Further, even with schedules too tight, arriving early at a bus stop is a taboo in the transit industry, since doing so forces many passengers to miss their connecting buses.

In pupil transportation services, arriving early is a similar taboo, particularly with young students. In the morning, if their buses arrive and depart early, the passengers might chase them down the street — a response that leads to a number of types of accidents involving both their buses and third party vehicles. In the PM period, kindergarten and many other elementary school-age students are often met by parents and guardians, especially if they must cross dangerous streets from the bus and otherwise during their walks home. So when buses arrive before these parents or guardians do, and the passengers are released into the traffic stream, all manner of mayhem (mostly crossing accidents) may occur. In fact, for many reasons (many of which are not safety compromises), more schoolbus students are killed or injured while off the bus (i.e., while crossing to and from their bus stops) than are injured on it. Regardless, for these reasons, speeding is not a major problem in pupil transportation service.

Finally, in special education service, complementary paratransit service, NEMT and taxi services, the vehicles do not follow a fixed route. Instead, they follow a presumably-efficient path between stops. In other words, only the sequence of pickups and drop-offs is predetermined — i.e., the driver’s schedule (or in taxi service, by a dispatcher — unless the taxis “cruise”). Largely because of the driver compensation formula in NEMT service, and particularly when brokers are involved, more incidents of speeding occur with this pool of underpaid and under-monitored (if not unmonitored) drivers than occur in other forms of public transportation that are “demand-responsive.” While not industry-wide, some taxi systems are actually monitored: Local or county regulations typically include “directness-of-routing” requirements, and violations are occasionally reported to regulatory authorities by passengers driven around in circles. Plus savvy taxi company owners want their drivers to maximize “passenger miles,” for which they are paid (usually according to rates generated by taxi meters).

While speeding can be dangerous in general, its biggest problem involves speeding around turns. This is because centrifugal forces become exaggerated. The faster the speed around the arc of a given turn, the higher these forces will be. In worst-case scenarios, speeding around tight corners can result in a rollover. Far more commonly, passengers are thrown out of their seats. Even more common, and usually resulting in much greater injuries, wheelchairs tip over. (See wheelchairtipovers.com.)

[1] As an illustration of the context for transit operating speeds, the average speed of a transit bus in the NYCTA has been estimated to lie below eight mph. — including stops, traffic jams and other constraints.

]]>14Failure to Kneelhttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/failure-to-kneel/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:07:26 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=20For many passengers, the 14-inch drop from the bottom step of a high-floor transit bus or a motorcoach is challenging. Keep in mind that: In transit service, drivers do not assist or even spot boarding or alighting passengers. While motorcoach drivers typically assist or spot boarding or alighting passengers at the front door, the drivers of motorcoaches deployed in commuter/express… Continue reading "Failure to Kneel"

]]>For many passengers, the 14-inch drop from the bottom step of a high-floor transit bus or a motorcoach is challenging. Keep in mind that:

In transit service, drivers do not assist or even spot boarding or alighting passengers.

While motorcoach drivers typically assist or spot boarding or alighting passengers at the front door, the drivers of motorcoaches deployed in commuter/express service (provided by transit agencies or companies under contract to them) do not.

Other than with one door configuration one occasionally finds on a transit bus, and never on a motorcoach, there are no handles extending outward from the door — a configuration that makes alighting even more dangerous than it already is, compared to boarding.

To address these risks, full size transit buses and motorcoaches (almost all of which contain pneumatic suspension systems) contain a clever feature that allows drivers to release air from the right front air bag and lower the front stepwell (or the front right corner of the floor on a low-floor transit bus) between 4 and 5 inches. This capability of these vehicles is referred to as a “kneeling feature.”

Kneeling the right-front corner of these buses is an industry standard when the vehicle’s front door is not pulled adjacent to a curb. And it is customary to kneel this door position, even with a curb present, for passengers visibly disabled (including cane users).[1] However, while a typical policy requirement and an industry standard, kneeling the right front corner of a bus or motorcoach is not a regulatory requirement.

Regardless, when a transit bus or motorcoach is pulled to the curb, the step down from the bottom step (14 inches on a traditional high-floor bus, and 12 inches on a low-floor, ramp-equipped bus) is lowered to roughly 9 or 7 inches, respectively, from the ground level. Where this is done at a curb (e.g., for elderly and disabled individuals), the passenger’s step up or down may only be 5 to even 3 inches.

Another caveat of the general industry-standard for kneeling a bus or coach’s front door position is that this is reasonable and prudent when (a) the door is more than three or four feet from the curb, (b) when there is no curb, or (c) when the passenger boarding or alighting is clearly elderly, disabled, a child, or someone else who is likely to have difficulty ascending or (more importantly) descending from a 14-inch-high bottom step (for a high-floor bus or a motorcoach) or a 12-inch-high floor surface (of a ramp-equipped, low-floor bus). In the latter case, the ramp should be extended for wheelchair users (in every case), walker users or passengers with another mobility-assistance device (e.g., cane), as well as someone elderly or with another disability [A]. As a practical matter and the industry standard, any passenger can request that the driver kneel the bus at this door position. Such requests are generally honored.

Because kneeling the vehicle down and up takes all of about six seconds, this maneuver should be done if there is any reasonable possibility that a passenger might need it. This is particularly true for alighting passengers, since (a) any difficulties they may have in ambulating should be obvious to the driver when they board, plus (b) alighting is more risky than boarding — although passengers falling forward while boarding a stepwell can indeed be injured, particularly if one’s shin strikes the edge of a step. Many drivers simply kneel the bus at every stop. Plus, motorcoach drivers in tour, charter or intercity/scheduled service “duty cycles,” and who themselves should first alight to assist or “spot” passengers boarding or alighting, should first kneel the vehicle.

It is a curiosity that few transit buses are “configured” to kneel at the rear door, since the technology for this is just as easy and low-cost as doing this for the front door. Further, many drivers do not pull their rear doors parallel to, and as close to, the curb or roadway edge as they should (see discussion in next subsection: “Pulling Adjacent to the Curb”), forcing alighting passengers to step down into a triangular or trapezoidal space. Yet finding a rear-door kneeling feature is a rarity. And when combined with a pull-in that places the rear door in one of these positions, the risk of a passenger injury is reasonably foreseeable.[2]

Policy requirements technically governing this procedure in transit service are very difficult to monitor — much less in a mode whose where drivers are actually encouraged to commit safety compromises (with a wink) because the principal goal is often to get drivers to comply with unreasonably tight schedules. Motorcoach drivers, whose schedules are not nearly as tight as most transit systems’ schedules are, generally do kneel their vehicles at the front (and only door for vehicles for this type). This is true largely because, in most motorcoach sectors (computer/express service excepted), drivers stand at the bottom of the stepwell to “spot” and/or assist passengers onto and off of the stepwell, as an industry standard. So drivers kneel the front stepwell partly to get on and off the vehicle themselves, and partly to help the passengers on and off. Regardless, no driver of any service will likely testify that efficiency or on-time performance (or reliability) is more important than safety. This is “the big lie” in public transportation.

Testifying that safety “comes first” is the Big Lie in almost every mode of public transportation service.

As a safety compromise, failing to kneel the bus or coach at the front door would seem like an asterisk, since it takes roughly six seconds to lower and then raise the stepwell, combined. Yet if a driver does not do this a few dozen times on a run (which a transit driver has an opportunity to do, with the stops so frequent), the driver can create several minutes of recovery time. Lest the reader think there is little incentive for a driver to stretch recovery time by two minutes, if the route’s schedule has no recovery time, despite the countless other safety compromises relentlessly committed by transit drivers, two minutes per run can make a difference. Plus, drivers who are supposed to be highly alert, and constantly driving “defensively” every nanosecond their vehicles are in motion, operate under a considerable degree of stress. So having a few minutes at the end of each run to merely ward off fatigue is an important component of a safe route and schedule. But when schedules are too tight, these few minutes can only be created by the commission of safety compromises.

Regardless, a surprising number of boarding and alighting accidents come from the failure to kneel the bus’ right-front corner. The most typical victim of this compromise is an elderly or disabled rider, an obese rider or a child. For such individuals, stepping down 14 inches is challenging. Plus, unless the victim is the first one off the bus (and even when he or she is), that passenger is not likely to know how far from the curb the door is, and thus, how far the drop to the ground surface or curb may be. This is especially true if drivers on most trips indeed kneel the bus for most passengers, and suddenly one driver does not. Broken hips, broken ankles and knee injuries are common consequences.

Finally, the technical specifications which most transit agencies use to define the kneeling features are often configured backwards. They can almost always be configured in one of two ways:

Pulling into a stop, the bus’ curb-side front corner can kneel and the doors can then open. And after the last passenger boards or alights, the doors can close and the curb-side front corner can then be raised.

Pulling into a stop, the bus’ front door can open and the curb-side front corner can be kneeled. Then, after the last passenger boards or alights, the curb-side front corner can be raised, and then the doors can be closed.

The distinction between these two scenarios may seem subtle. But the second of these scenarios can effectively transform the stepwell into an escalator — something bus passengers hardly expect. TA President Ned Einstein has served as an expert witness where a foolishly-configured kneeling feature began rising, with the door still open, and a passenger catching his bus at the last minute leaped onto the stepwell — only to find himself on an escalator, and nearly tearing his arm out of its socket in his effort to not tumble backwards down the moving stepwell. Mr. Einstein served as an expert on a similar case where two elderly passengers were alighting when the stepwell began descending — and with the door still open, tumbled down their “moving stepwell” onto the sidewalk below. Unlike the time-savings derived from other kneeling feature failures, this quirk saves no time. So it is not even a genuine safety compromise. It is simply the result of ignorance or indifference. Individuals who prepare vehicle specifications for a transit agency (typically a senior maintenance official) should know better.

[1] Walker users should be boarded and alighted via an accessible vehicles’ wheelchair lift. However, this is not often done on a high-floor transit bus, and rarely done for a walker user boarding or alighting from a motorcoach. They should obviously board and alight via the ramp on a low-floor vehicle.

[2] Motorcoaches do not have rear doors for regular alighting, although they increasingly have rear doors equipped with wheelchair lifts. Otherwise, transit passengers are not allowed to board at the rear door, since fares can only be collected (or passes observed, etc.) at the front door, where the driver and farebox are positioned.

[A] In some cases, particularly on low-floor vehicles, and particualrly when vehicles are kneeled, some of these ambulatory or semi-ambulatory passengers may step on or off the stepwell or floor before the driver has a chance to perform this task.

]]>20Pulling Adjacent to the Curbhttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/pulling-adjacent-to-the-curb/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:06:29 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=23Pulling a large vehicle to the curb takes little time. However, even this seemingly-simple task requires driving skill, knowledge and physical space. Regarding these spatial needs: To pull a full-size bus’ front door the proper distance from the curb requires a 90-foot-long “bus zone” — preferably “red-lined” so that other vehicles respect this often not-signed no-parking zone. To position the… Continue reading "Pulling Adjacent to the Curb"

]]>Pulling a large vehicle to the curb takes little time. However, even this seemingly-simple task requires driving skill, knowledge and physical space. Regarding these spatial needs:

To pull a full-size bus’ front door the proper distance from the curb requires a 90-foot-long “bus zone” — preferably “red-lined” so that other vehicles respect this often not-signed no-parking zone.

To position the rear door this same proper distance from the curb requires roughly 120 feet. A 60-foot-long articulated bus requires even more space, since its rear door (20 or so feet behind its middle door) lies even further back from the front cap of the bus.

This space is required to ensure that all the vehicles’ doors are close to, and parallel to, the curb so that the bus does not have to kneel. And this requirement is particularly important since, as noted above, few transit buses are configured to kneel at the rear door as well as the front door — even while the costs for configuring a bus to kneel at both doors (or all three doors for an articulated transit bus) costs a fraction more than the costs of configuring only the bus’ front door to do this.

One reason that kneeling the bus at both (or all three doors of an articulated bus) doors is a good idea is the fact that, for various reasons, drivers often “nose in” their buses — leaving a triangular or trapezoidal space near the curb, and necessarily further away from it, at the rear door. When drivers commit this error, they create the same situation at the rear door that has made kneeling the bus at the front door an industry standard — when its front door is not close to the curb.

As far as lateral distance, buses are supposed to pull within six to 12 inches of the curb, or more than four feet away from it. If the driver tries to pull closer than six inches, he or she risks banging the vehicle’s right front tire (or front “curb-side” tire, in public transportation jargon) into the curb. This slow-speed collision catapults seated passengers forward (a bigger problem for those seated in side-facing seats over the wheel wells or flip-up seats placed over wheelchair securement positions). Worse, “standees” may be jettisoned forward, and often injured seriously as they are effectively torn from the stanchions which they had presumably been holding onto during the ride. Worse still, many transit passengers (who should be warned otherwise) walk toward an exit door when the bus nears their stop. When a bus’ right-front tire bongs into a curb, these passengers can be jettisoned violently forward.

Another reason that buses are supposed to pull to within six to 12 inches of the curb — or four or more feet away from it — is that the distance between one and four feet away, known as the “gray zone,” presents an unusual challenge to alighting passengers. (Those with kneeling features should kneel the buses when they are not pulled adjacent to the curb.) Unless this passenger is the first one to alight, he or she is not likely to know how far from the curb the bottom step is until he or she is in “mid-step.” At this point, such passengers are instantly faced with the choice of stepping down into the roadway or “stretching” to reach the curb. TA President Ned Einstein has been involved in several cases where, while stepping off into this gray zone, a passenger had stepped onto broken chips of a curb edge (because the driver discharged passengers on the wrong side of the intersection — see discussion in Stopping on the Wrong Side of an Intersection), into a patch of wet cement, or into a bank of snow that had recently been plowed to the curb.

The gray zone poses less of a risk to boarding passengers. But even boarding passengers have to step down into the gutter to board a bus whose front door lies in the gray zone. Often this gutter is filled with muddy water, ice or snow. And apart from the slippery quality of this substance, the passenger has no idea how deep the snow bank or puddle is. In worst-case situations, this scenario poses a risk to even a gymnast or an acrobat. So an elderly or disabled passenger is clearly at risk stepping down into the gutter, particular when that gutter is filled with water, mud, ice or snow.

Another less obvious, but still serious, problem with “nosing in, is the fact that the bus’ “tail” will stick out into the travel lane. This positioning may cause drivers of vehicles otherwise traveling in that lane behind the bus to merge into a lane to their left (as an alternative to slamming on their brakes, since a bus nosing in is not predictable to a common motorist whose vehicle is following it). Further, the tail of the bus sticking out into the travel lane adjacent to it obscures the driver’s view of vehicles approaching the bus from behind via the bus driver’s street-side, exterior rear-view mirrors. As a consequence, this positioning makes pulling back into the traffic stream a significant risk for both the bus and its passengers, as well as for a motorist (and his or her passengers) whose vehicle is approaching the bus from behind.

Interestingly, the time needed to pull a bus or coach to the curb is rarely the reason drivers do not do so. They mostly do not do so because of the often difficult and time-consuming task of merging back into the traffic stream. This is particularly true with inner-city transit service, where the bus must pull into a bus stop in a “curb lane” that is otherwise used for parking. During crowded rush-hour traffic, when motorists (and even professional drivers) may not be observant of a bus’ need to re-enter the traffic stream, a bus driver could be delayed, or have to take some risk of a collision (usually being rear-ended) to merge the vehicle back into the traffic stream. So many transit drivers simply stop in the travel lane. Even when the front door is kneeled, this positioning places passengers boarding and alighting at that door at the risk of being struck by a car passing the bus on the right. Or it otherwise forces them to walk across a full lane in a roadway that may not be as well-maintained as the sidewalk adjacent to it — much less a lane wet, muddy, or with a surface covered with ice or snow. Particularly where buses may have difficulty merging back into traffic (e.g., during rush hours in downtown urban areas), failing to pull the bus to the curb multiple times can cut significant slices of time from a route’s schedule. As a result, this aberration is a common safety compromise.

Schoolbuses do not always experience the same types of problems, as requirements for pulling over a schoolbus differ from state to state. For example, in Oregon, schoolbuses are not permitted to pull over at all. They must board and discharge their passengers from the travel lane. Such rules are common to states with a high percentage of wooded areas, which do not often contain lane-wide road shoulders onto which these vehicles can pull over. Pulling over onto a narrow shoulder would leave part of the vehicle’s body in the travel lane, inducing vehicles approaching it from behind to either merge into the lane adjacent to them, or on two-lane roads, to literally cross the yellow center-line and merge into the oncoming lane to swerve around the vehicle. A transit bus may be forced to board or discharge passengers in the travel lane, as well, in rural areas with no bus-wide road shoulders. However, rural areas are far-less-saturated with transit buses, whereas schoolbuses are common. Plus, with the kneeling features accommodated by their pneumatic suspension systems, transit drivers can at least lower the front door (or both doors when their kneeling features are configured to do this) to decrease the distance from the bottom step to the pavement. Schoolbuses, with truck-like leaf-spring suspension systems, do not have this option. And the step up to or down from the 14-inch-high bottom step is more challenging for a small child-passenger. Fortunately, most of these passengers are young and nimble, and a fall does not present the same risk as it does to an elderly or disabled transit passenger.

Regardless, depending on the type of bus and the characteristics of the operating environment (urban, suburban, rural), not pulling the bus to the curb is not automatically a safety compromise. And even when the bus can pull over, it may not be able to do so if another vehicle is illegally occupying the bus zone. As noted, when this happens to a transit passengers, the risks can be mitigated somewhat by the driver kneeling the bus’ front door (or, again, ideally at both doors). These same risks to schoolbus passengers cannot be mitigated in this fashion.

There are also aberrations related to poor coordination between roadway design and bus operations. For example, the curb lanes in a few cities may not provide sufficient width to accommodate a 102-inch-wide transit bus, or even a 96-inch-wide schoolbus. Many major arterial streets in San Francisco, for example, have seven foot wide curb lanes. So were an eight-and-a-half-foot-wide transit bus to pull within six inches of the curb into a seven-foot-wide curb lane, its “street” side (or left side) would stick out two full feet into the adjacent travel lane. This intrusion would understandably induce motorists approaching the bus from the rear (and presumably unaware of the dimensional mismatch of the bus with its curb lane) to either slam on their vehicles’ brakes (if there is still time to) or immediately merge into a travel lane to the left (where there is one). On roadways with only a single travel lane and a curb lane this narrow, vehicles forced to swerve around the bus necessarily swerve into an oncoming lane (risking a “head-on” collision with an oncoming vehicle in the process).

]]>23Stopping on the Wrong Side of an Intersectionhttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/stopping-on-the-wrong-side-of-an-intersection/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:05:09 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=40In almost any part of the country other than a rural area, fixed route transit buses must stop only at “designated stops.” Occasionally, in a high-density, urban area, where a “trip generator” occupies all or most of an entire block, and/or there are no or only minor trip generators on the opposite side of the street, mid-block stops are pretty… Continue reading "Stopping on the Wrong Side of an Intersection"

]]>In almost any part of the country other than a rural area, fixed route transit buses must stop only at “designated stops.” Occasionally, in a high-density, urban area, where a “trip generator” occupies all or most of an entire block, and/or there are no or only minor trip generators on the opposite side of the street, mid-block stops are pretty much taboo, largely because they induce or “encourage” jaywalking.

As a result of the mid-block problem, most bus stops are either designated for the “near-side” of an intersection or its “far-side.” All things being equal, a transit bus stop should be located on the far side of the intersection. This positioning reflects the fact that pedestrians (bus passengers obviously among them) are taught to cross at intersections. So at a near side stop, the intersection lies in front of the bus — creating a conflict for an alighting passenger or one crossing to the bus stop: Either cross in front of the bus (where motorists do not expect transit bus passengers to cross) or cross behind the bus, effectively jaywalking across the roadway. Because a bus creates a significant sight-line blockage between any individuals (walking or driving), the position where someone crosses the roadway with respect to the bus stop is of critical importance.

A common problem leading to many accidents is that bus drivers sometimes do not stop at the designated stop position — usually because their schedules are too tight:

A bus approaching a far-side stop at a signalized intersection may get caught in a red light, and instruct passengers to alight on the near-side, so that the driver does not have to stop yet again on the opposite side of the intersection.

A bus approaching a near-side stop at a signalized intersection may ignore it in order to “make the [green] light,” and stop instead on the far side.

The problem with both these deviations is that bus stops — particularly in urban and suburban areas — are not simply pieces of land with a bus stop sign stuck in the ground. They are often cement bus pads, often with bus shelters, and commonly wheelchair-accessible bus pads or shelters. In contrast, a sliver of land that is not “treated” can be anything. (The industry jargon for making bus stops safer and more accommodating is “stop treatment”.) TA President Ned Einstein has served as an expert witness in a number of lawsuits where drivers improvised both deviations — and in the process alighted passengers onto broken curbing, patches of freshly-poured wet cement, or where the rear door’s opening was obstructed by a trash bin, utility pole or other fixed object (in the latter case, forcing the passenger to squeeze out of a partially-opened door into the gutter).

As densities decrease, the insistence on a designated stop becomes less realistic. A passenger may board or alight only once every several miles. As such, the placement of formal stops would require the individuals to walk for several miles. Instead, would-be passengers “flag down” the drivers of approaching buses. Or passengers on-board “chime” their drivers to stop at their desired destination — ideally chiming them early enough for the driver to select a safe place to stop and make all the observations necessary to do so safely. The selection of a safe place to stop is a judgment based on a considerable number of factors, including (presumably) a lot of training, and a great deal of experience.

In transit service, mid-block stops, as noted, are occasionally installed where almost all the passengers would be coming from a single, lengthy origin or heading to a single, lengthy destination. And either there would be few or no “trip generators” on the opposite side of the street, or characteristics of that street (e.g., several travel lanes in each direction) would dissuade anyone from jaywalking across it. In contrast, mid-block stops — preferably on low-traffic-volume “side streets” — are desirable for schoolbuses. This is because these buses contain their own red and amber “traffic signals.” Stopping at a signalized intersection, and engaging a schoolbus’ own traffic signals, would create confusion for motorists.

As an important footnote to the difference between transit and schoolbus stops, and the inclusion of crossing devices on schoolbuses:

Schoolbus passengers are supposed to cross in front of their buses.

Transit and motorcoach passengers are supposed to cross behind their buses.

These practices are extremely important because motorists operating other vehicles expect these passengers to cross at these positions with respect to the types of buses they are riding. One interesting aspect of crossing-related accidents is the fact that, in nearly half of them, irrespective of the type of vehicle, the crossing “orientation” of the passenger was wrong for that type of bus (see crossingaccidents.com.) Yet this is not always the fault of the passenger. In some cases, passengers are actually forced to cross in the wrong orientation — as, for example, schoolbus passengers in Baltimore and Osceola (FL) who are instructed to cross behind the bus, as a liability ruse (since more schoolbus fatalities and serious injuries occur off the bus than while riding it, and getting one’s schoolbus “over the horizon” before the inevitable third-party car comes along and nails the pedestrian presumably insulates the school district from liability). Otherwise, most passengers forced to cross counter to their vehicle’s proper crossing orientation are placed in this position by a driver’s effort to avoid having to stop the bus on both sides of an intersection — a clear safety compromise that often involves considerable risk.

]]>40Boarding and Alighting Accidents and Incidentshttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/boarding-and-alighting-accidents-and-incidents/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:04:51 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=26All passengers injured or killed in boarding and alighting accidents are not decimated when the vehicle is moving. Plenty of them are injured before the bus even moves. Others are injured when drivers close doors on them (including front doors!), or when the bus’ “kneeling feature” is engaged with passengers still on the stepwell. Among the inexcusably ignorant horrors of… Continue reading "Boarding and Alighting Accidents and Incidents"

]]>All passengers injured or killed in boarding and alighting accidents are not decimated when the vehicle is moving. Plenty of them are injured before the bus even moves. Others are injured when drivers close doors on them (including front doors!), or when the bus’ “kneeling feature” is engaged with passengers still on the stepwell.

Among the inexcusably ignorant horrors of boarding and alighting is the practice of boarding a walker use via the stepwell when the bus (or van- or minibus) has a wheelchair lift. Most puzzling about this practice is the fact that, if a walker users needs a walker merely to stand on a flat, dry, level surface, what makes anyone (much less a “transportation professional”) think this individual can climb a short set of steps, or step onto a van- or minibus’ floor surface from the ground level? Worse still, what makes anyone think that such a person can descend them?

If a walker user requires this device to merely stand up on a flat, dry level surface, what make anyone think that that this person can possibly climb three or four steps?

Another puzzling error is closing the door on a passenger (either boarding or alighting). Because it is often difficult to observe passengers alighting from the rear door of a transit bus, Federal regulations require these rear doors to contain two important devices:

A “sensitive edge” (rubber edges on both door panels which, upon contact with a foreign object, pop the doors back open)

An “interlock” (a configuration that stops the bus if the rear door panels open, or which prevents the bus from moving until the rear door panels are closed.

There are no such regulations for either device on a front door (even though interlocks are common on schoolbuses, which only have a front door). But this regulatory abstention reflects the fact that, entering or exiting the front door of a bus, the passenger is right in front of the driver’s eyeballs. The problem is that transit drivers do indeed close front doors on passengers’ arms or torsos — even when these passengers are or should be in plain sight. Much of the reason for this (like most safety compromises) reflects a schedule too tight. So while the installation of a sensitive edge or interlock in the front door is common to most transit agencies, a reasonable and prudent agency should provide such devices if its schedules are tight, and especially if they have even a brief history of drivers closing front doors on passengers. TA President Ned Einstein actually served as an expert in three lawsuits in the past three years (2015 to 2017) where bus drivers did just this. And in depositions, the defendant’s management argued that such devices were not installed largely because they were not required as a regulatory matter.

]]>26Rolling Turns and Sharp Turnshttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/rolling-turns-and-sharp-turns/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:03:22 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=29Vehicles with long wheel bases are supposed to make “square” turns. In a square turn, the vehicle’s rear, drive axle should reach the “extended curb line” of the near-side of an intersection before the vehicle begins to make its turn. The arc of a right turn is almost always sharp. And large vehicles making any type of right turn (square… Continue reading "Rolling Turns and Sharp Turns"

]]>Vehicles with long wheel bases are supposed to make “square” turns. In a square turn, the vehicle’s rear, drive axle should reach the “extended curb line” of the near-side of an intersection before the vehicle begins to make its turn. The arc of a right turn is almost always sharp. And large vehicles making any type of right turn (square or otherwise) into anything but a large, multi-lane roadway must necessarily begin their turns into the perpendicular lane on the opposite side of the roadway. For these reasons, these vehicles generally come to a stop or slow to a crawl before making right turns. (See “Dancing in the Oncoming Lane.”)

Turning right too quickly is difficult because the arc of the turn is so sharp: A vehicle racing around a right turn is likely to literally “roll over.” For this reason, far fewer turning accidents occur during right turns — even while it is a tad more challenging for even properly-trained and properly-acting drivers to see around otherwise blind spots (by “rocking-and-rolling” their heads forwards, backwards and from side-to-side) to the right of them (window posts, exterior rear-view mirrors, etc.) because these objects are further away from their eyes.

In contrast, a significant number of left-turning accidents result from “rolling turns” — often at sweeping speeds (see “The Danger Deterrent“). Occasionally a driver races through a turn to “beat the light.” But even without this specious goal, bus drivers can shave a good 10 seconds or more off the route’s running time by making a rolling turn, compared to the vehicle coming to a complete stop (or coming to a crawl) and making a proper, “square” turn. Done enough times, this stunt can, by itself, shave several minutes off the running time of a single run.

The problems with rolling turns relate mostly to reaction time and distance, and braking distance. Coming to a complete stop, the driver has a chance to look at and around the intersection (including, most importantly, the marked or unmarked crosswalk) before moving the bus a millimeter. And even if the driver does not spot a pedestrian in the crosswalk into which he or she is turning until the bus has begun to turn, it would be traveling — from a square turn at a complete stop, or even a slow crawl — at such a slow speed that the driver could likely bring it to a complete stop in several feet. In contrast, in a rolling turn at 20 mph, during the driver’s two-second reaction time, the vehicle would travel roughly 59 feet.[1] And braking to a stop from that distance would consume an additional 32 feet. Simply put, unless a driver making such a turn, at this speed, spots a pedestrian in a crosswalk 91 feet in front of his or her bus, the driver will not be able to stop in time to avoid striking him or her. (See crossingaccidents.com and turningaccidents.com.)

Because of the enormity of the risks (vehicle-vehicle or vehicle-pedestrian collisions), rolling turns are extremely reckless. To an industry outsider, such maneuvers would not likely be recognized as a safety compromise. But this is not the case for a seasoned transportation professional, much less one who is a veteran expert witness of dozens of turning accidents and scores of crossing accidents. More importantly, a study conducted by a transit agency in 2015 (see Seattle METRO) documented the relationship between insufficient running time and left turning collisions.

Sharp turns (particular sharp left turns, which can be made at higher speeds) also create considerably more centrifugal force. So in addition to the risks that such turns create for pedestrians, motorists and their passengers outside the vehicle, they create risks for passengers inside the vehicle. Most at risk among these individuals are wheelchair users whose chairs were not secured, or not properly secured. But other passengers are also at risk — particularly standees — given the enormous centrifugal forces that can be generated by sharp turns. TA President Ned Einstein actually served as an expert witness in a case where three transit passengers — including one seated on the street-side of the bus, opposite the rear door — were thrown through the closed, rear door and into the street during a bus’ left turn from a dead stop, before the bus even completed its turn. (See “The Mysterious Force.”)

There have been numerous studies of vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-pedestrian accidents involving turns (see turningaccidents.com). Many have assigned different percentages of these collisions to one type of turn versus another. However few of these studies include data about the speeds involved when the vehicles whose statistics were cited made the various turns. Nor do these studies note the arc of the turns. This is largely because few police reports, or even many investigations of such incidents, note either of these factors. In contrast, if one can find them and bothers to do so, these factors can be examined closely in a lawsuit. And, as noted, one transit agency actually studied some of these relationships closely and documented a relationship between tight schedules (or “insufficient running time”) and left turn accidents. So, again, because transit, paratransit and particularly NEMT schedules are often so relentlessly tight, turning incidents often represent safety compromises. As noted, the consequences of these turns for passengers exposed to high centrifugal forces (particularly wheelchair users) speak for themselves (see wheelchairtipovers.com).

[1] The compression of air in the brake cylinders of a vehicle with a pneumatic brake system adds roughly another half-second to the vehicle’s reaction time — beyond the typical .75 seconds it takes for the driver to recognize a problem, and the other .75 second to transfer his or her foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal.

]]>29Passenger Assistance: Standards, Practices & Disincentiveshttp://www.safetycompromises.com/2017/04/01/tips-trips-and-falls/
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 12:02:28 +0000http://www.safetycompromises.com/?p=32One unusual safety compromise is common mostly to shuttle service: The failure to assist passengers on and off the vehicle. Passenger assistance to shuttle passengers (most of whom are not elderly or disabled) is certainly an industry standard, as that standard is defined by what a “reasonable and prudent” operator would do. However, in real life, these drivers receive tips.… Continue reading "Passenger Assistance: Standards, Practices & Disincentives"

]]>One unusual safety compromise is common mostly to shuttle service: The failure to assist passengers on and off the vehicle.

Passenger assistance to shuttle passengers (most of whom are not elderly or disabled) is certainly an industry standard, as that standard is defined by what a “reasonable and prudent” operator would do. However, in real life, these drivers receive tips. And they receive them far more often for fetching a passenger’s luggage than for spotting or assisting the passenger off the vehicle floor. So drivers are often induced to dash off the vehicle toward the luggage compartment in the rear rather than spot or assist passengers on or off the vehicle. Incidents occur far more often during alighting than boarding (since the distance of a fall forward is much less severe during boarding). And they are similarly more common with elderly and/or disabled passengers.

This failure is problematic largely because the typical “stock” vehicles deployed in many shuttle services have not been modified for public transportation purposes — most importantly, with a stepwell “converted” into the side door. Instead, the typical 24- to 26-inch distance from the vehicle’s floor to the ground surface below is minimally mitigated by the inclusion of a narrow running board (typically still 18 to 21 inches above ground) and possibly a sliver of a side “bumper” or rail (often only 4″ wide) a few inches below that. Plus such vehicles rarely contain any semblance of a coherent hand rail. (The handles on the rear side of doors is a sucker punch: The aft-panel of most double-paneled, outward-opening doors is rarely cantilevered. So when a passenger grabs the door handle and leans on the door, it swings around another 90 degrees, allowing the passenger holding onto it to fall completely out of the vehicle from its floor level.)

On full-size buses with stepwells, like those often deployed to circulate between airport terminals and fringe parking lots, drivers are more apt to spot a passenger in need of assistance boarding or alighting because the luggage is stored in the passenger compartment rather than in a luggage compartment at the rear. That driver is either bounding on and off the vehicle to handle luggage, or handing it up to passengers who have just boarded or handing it down to those who have just alighted. In other words, drivers of these vehicles handle luggage on or near the stepwell — rather than stow it in or retrieve it from some luggage compartment in the rear, or beneath the floor of a motorcoach. As a consequence, boarding and alighting accidents on shuttle services more often happen on small vehicle “conversions” with remote luggage compartments, particularly as the conversion of many of these vehicles did not include the creation of a stepwell.

Regardless of the scenario’s nuances, minor time-savings can be derived from a driver stowing or fetching luggage in contrast to assisting passengers on or off the vehicle. But the time savings are not minimal compared to other safety compromises, since the driver assisting passengers on and off the vehicle still has to stow or retrieve their luggage. This is also true since most other modes make more stops along often much-longer routes than do shuttles on their routinely short routes. Otherwise, because this particular safety compromise is driven by tips, it does not “play well” to jurors.

While studies of shuttle drivers’ tips are rare or non-existent, limousine drivers — who generally assist passengers on and off the vehicle while less often stowing or retrieving luggage (other than at airports or trips to or from them) — often earn most of their income from tips. But in limousine service, most trips involve only a single pickup and drop-off. And the tips are significant. So limousine drivers generally assist passengers in and out of the vehicle and stow or fetch their luggage.

As a final note, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires all vehicles to have intelligible handrails accessible to passengers both boarding and alighting. And these handrails must be accessible throughout the boarding and alighting processes. Many van- and mini-bus conversions either contain no such handrails at all. Or they fall short of the requirements for them in the ADA. Such shortcomings would appear to make a strong case when a disabled passenger is injured during boarding and alighting because the handrails are insufficient according to the ADA. A much more interesting lawsuit arises when a non-disabled passenger is injured by this shortcoming, since it is reasonably foreseeable that some disabled passengers are likely to be using that vehicle at least occasionally.